Concordia's Sunny Powers is in fourth place with two rounds to play at the NAIA National Championships.
Cavs Climb on Second Day of the NAIA National Championships
GREENVILLE, Tenn.—Coming back with its second straight 19-over 311, the Concordia University women’s golf team moved up two spots to 11th in the team standings at the NAIA National Championships held at Link Hills Golf and Country Club.
After recording the best national championship score in team history yesterday, Concordia (311-311—622) responded with the identical score, tied for the seventh best of the day, to close to within a spot from the top 10.
The Cavaliers will enter the third round three strokes back of eighth place as Northwood (304-315—619), Cumberland (301-311—619) and Lubbock Christian (301-318—619) are all tied with 619s.
In an incredible one-day move, British Columbia (305-299—604) leaped to the top of the team standings after starting the day in seventh place. With three strokes separating the top four teams, the Thunderbirds are chased by Savannah College of Art & Design (310-295—605), Shorter (298-308—606) and William Woods (303-304—607). Through 36 holes of action, Embry-Riddle (308-304—612) completes the top five teams. Fellow CCC member, College of Idaho (318-333—651) fell four spots to 21st place in the team race.
Pairings for the third round will be announced later this evening.
One of only six golfers to finish below par in the second round, Sunny Powers (74-72—146) charged up the leaderboard to end the day in fourth place at the halfway point of the event. Powers opened the day in a tie for 12th place and is now just four strokes off the overall lead held by Nikki Stewart (73-69—142) of Savannah College of Art & Design.
With the team starting on No.1, Powers registered birdies on two of the three par-5s on the front nine. After shooting even par through the first nine holes, Powers finished the second half with a 1-under after birdies on No. 12 and No. 17, both par-4s.
Like Powers, Concordia senior Sara Molyneux (76-74—150) also posted a two-stroke improvement from Tuesday’s round with a 1-over 74. Molyneux cracked the top 15 with five birdies on her second tour of the course, compared to just one yesterday, to share 12th place with two other individuals.
Holly Speer (80-82—162) and Jenna Boyle (81-83—164) completed CU’s scoring for Tuesday while freshman Madison Alamillo (85-85—170) turned in an 85 for the second straight day.
Victoria’s Megan Woodland (73-70—143) is one stroke back of the overall lead while Oklahoma City’s Jeeica Schiele (77-68—145) carded the lowest round of the tournament thus far with a 5-under 68 to jump to third after waking up tied for 49th place.
Trish Gibbens (72-82—154) leads C of I after two rounds with an 8-over 154, falling from third to 34th. Baylee Borchers (77-84—161), Jocelyn Cracroft (84-81—165), Melissa Clauson 85-85-171 and Reagan Stanford (95-101—196) round out the group from C of I.